Quote: Cronus "Whether you agree or not, he did. Thaler asks the VR "are we going with the knock-on or are we going with the contact", he later points to his earpiece and says "I've got it from here, knock on", and then several times, "they've viewed/reviewed it, no foul".
That's when the verdict changed from 'no contact with the head' (clearly a mistake and he only says it once), to 'no foul play' (which he repeats any number of times). And that's the crux of the matter. There was no foul play, no intent, no 'attack to the head' (as I've seen people claim). It was a clumsy, ill-timed collision caused by the speed of Leuluai's chase and the fact Russell knocked on and lunged forward and downward for the ball.
If Russell had gathered the ball it would have just been a well-timed, good hard tackle, but his forward lunge reduced the distance between the players unexpectedly. You can see Leuluai react to this by turning his head immediately prior to collision. It came too early, too hard, all timing out the window.
Not all incidents like this are foul play, regardless of severity of injury. We don't penalise when heads accidentally collide with hips, knees, elbows or indeed other heads and for me this is no different. 'Blame' is not the word to use but the position Russell put himself in is what resulted in the collision.
Again though, I expect the RFL will feel they need to send a message and will take some form of action.'"
I didn't hear Thaler ask anyone to do anything on the VR side. If they had looked at it, they would have awarded Widnes a try. Russell knocked on, no one else did, and it was grounded in goal by a Widnes player.
As far saying that Russell losing the ball led to him being cleaned out, that's rubbish. When he first knocked on Leuluai had plenty of time to pull out. He didn't He continued & cleaned Russell out without him having the ball.
Compare it to the Hanbury knock on from athe high kick. Myler was bearing down on him to put a hot on, but he pulled out of it.
Watching the ML tackle at full speed it's an awful tackle & should get a long ban.
